Drought is an inescapable reality in many regions, including much of the western United States. With climate change, droughts are predicted to intensify and occur more frequently, making the imperative for drought management even greater. Many diverse actors – including private landowners, business owners, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and managers and policymakers within tribal, local, state, and federal government agencies – play multiple, often overlapping roles in preparing for and responding to drought. Managing water is, of course, one of the most important roles that humans play in both mitigating and responding to droughts; but, focusing only on “water managers” or “water management” fails to capture key elements related to the broader category of drought management. The respective roles played by those managing drought (as distinct from water managers), the interactions among them, and the consequences in particular contexts, are not well understood. Our team synthesized insights from 10 in-depth case studies to understand key facets of decision making about drought preparedness and response. We present a typology with four elements that collectively describe how decisions about drought preparedness and response are made (context and objective for a decision; actors responsible; choice being made or action taken; and how decisions interact with and influence other decisions). The typology provides a framework for system-level understanding of how and by whom complex decisions about drought management are made. Greater system-level understanding helps decision makers, program and research funders, and scientists to identify constraints to and opportunities for action, to learn from the past, and to integrate ecological impacts, thereby facilitating social learning among diverse participants in drought preparedness and response.

干旱是许多地区不可避免的现实，包括美国西部的大部分地区。随着气候变化，预计干旱将加剧并且发生得更加频繁，这使得干旱管理的必要性更加迫切。许多不同的参与者——包括私人土地所有者、企业主、科学家、非政府组织 (NGO) 以及部落、地方、州和联邦政府机构内的管理者和决策者——在准备和应对干旱方面发挥着多重且往往重叠的作用. 当然，管理水资源是人类在缓解和应对干旱方面发挥的最重要作用之一；但是，仅关注“水资源管理者”或“水资源管理”未能捕捉到与更广泛的干旱管理类别相关的关键要素。干旱管理人员（与水资源管理者不同）所扮演的各自角色、它们之间的相互作用以及在特定情况下的后果尚不清楚。我们的团队综合了 10 个深入案例研究的见解，以了解有关干旱准备和响应的决策的关键方面。我们提出了一个包含四个要素的类型学，这些要素共同描述了如何做出关于干旱准备和响应的决策（决策的背景和目标；负责的参与者；正在做出的选择或采取的行动；以及决策如何与其他决策相互作用并影响其他决策）。类型学为系统级理解如何以及由谁做出有关干旱管理的复杂决策提供了一个框架。更深入的系统级理解有助于决策者、项目和研究资助者，